How do you know
by Blahsblah2001
Summary: Zim was always an egotistical little monster. That didn't change a bit, even after he died. ONE-SHOT.
1. the bomb

I own no characters. I got this idea from a mix of ten billion horror stories and a quote from walk for your lives. "well, there is Zim, but I think he stopped being alive." 

Zim was always an egotistical little monster, and that didn't change a bit after he died. If anything, it got worse because he can't even figure out that he's dead.

I don't know why he can't understand death. Or at least, his death. Maybe he doesn't know he was killed in the explosion. Maybe he's still so hung up on his own greatness he doesn't think he CAN die. Maybe he just won't accept what has happened and is trying to keep himself convinced he's alive.  
It's been two days, and he's doing a very good job of it.  
He does, mostly, the same stuff he did when he was alive. I know, because I've been tracking him all over, mostly, the same way I did when he was alive. I don't think he can actually see me. Which is strange. I'm alive, he's dead. He should be the invisible one, but no.  
Nothing is ever normal, I guess, when it comes to Zim. I'm just excited, because tomorrow is Monday and he has to go to school. I can't wait to see the look on his face when Ms. Bitters announces why he isn't in school. I can just picture it. Confusion giving way to shock, and then the ever-present rage.  
And then he'll come and yell at me Everything that goes wrong for him is my fault. I'm just going to laugh at him.  
And then he'll probably fade away, like most ghosts do when they discover that they are dead. He'll fade out of my life, he'll fade from memory, and eventually he'll just be the alien ghost I found when I was twelve.  
What a horrible way to go.

(flashback)

Friday nights were great. Everybody thought so. Sometimes because of parties, sometimes because of movies that were coming out.  
But not For Dib. Not for Zim.  
For them, Fridays were great because they symbolized another fight to the death. Invariably, after these fights, they would drag themselves home, broken and bloody, but with the sure knowledge that they had won, triumphed against each other, again.  
But this one was to be different. This was to be the one real fight to the death. The final one.

The battlefeild for this Friday was to be an old clearing in the woods, a place Dib had once likened to the barrens in IT. There was a creek that flowed to one side, and the place was littered with old tires and the like. Dib was planning to use the river to his benefit somehow, Zim was wondering how much cover he could get if he pulled himself behind the concealing leaves of the trees.  
Zim was primarily interested in cover that day. The reason was that he was going to break one of the unwritten rules of their warfare.  
He was bringing explosives onto the field.  
The explosives in question were a highly regarded bomb recently turned out by the Vortions. Perfect for assassinations and planetary warfare because it would destroy all living creatures, leaving everything else untouched. The one Zim had was small, he expected it to affect about a hundred foot radius. The fuse was set for four seconds, faster than the human could fun, slightly slower than Zim's spider legs could carry him.  
Foolproof. The humans would not even have a clue as to how the boy had died. Sure, the trees which were effected would lose a few branches, but that happened all the time.  
Zim waited in the center of the clearing, waiting for Dib. The earth boy, he knew, would arrive within minutes, he always did. Then it was jut the matter of luring him in close enough to detonate the bio-bomb.  
Dib emerged from the trees, pulling a twig out of the spike of hair. Zim grinned maliciously at the boy.  
"Whatever you're doing, Zim, you won't get away with it!" "I will! I will for I am ZIM!" "What are you doing anyway?" "Wouldn't you and your inferior Marines like to know?" Dib glared at the Invader. Whatever Zim was planning, he obviously thought it would be big if it involved the marines.  
Nothing for it to get closer and check it out…  
(end this flashback. OOOH! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENS!)

Okay, I don't own bio-bombs either. They belong to Eoin Colfer, who wrote the Artemis Fowl books. He is great. I am not.


	2. the graveyard

I'm starting to feel sorry for Zim. Everybody ignores him. He's starting to feel a bit sad, I think, without me around. I don't know where he thinks I went. Nobody else seems to notice either of us.  
But it wasn't until it was Friday, a full week after he had died, that I decided he had to know about what happened. It wasn't normal, it wasn't natural, hell, it wasn't humane to let him just wander around like this.  
Friday night, I found him up late, I don't think he slept even when he was alive. He was in his base, working on some chip or another.  
I came up to the front of the table, he didn't notice me."  
"Zim. Look at me. Can you see me?"  
Zim looked up, like he thought he heard something but wasn't sure. I guessed he couldn't hear me well either. I'll have to look into the dead's perception of the living when this is over.  
"Zim. Listen hard. It's me, Dib. I'm right in front of you. Can you see me?"  
Zim looked up again, squinting at about where my stomach was. His eyes traveled upward.  
"Dib?"  
"Yeah. Can you see me?"  
"I can see. How did you get"  
"That's not important. I have to show you something."  
I knew if Zim couldn't convince himself he was dead, nothing I could say would convince him. He had to see for himself.  
"Show me what? I can't go out, it's raining."  
It won't matter, he's a ghost.  
"Take an umbrella or something. This is really important."  
Zim regarded me with something like fear. He was thinking, I could tell, about possible holes in the defenses. After a second he walked to the elevators. I went in after him, and a second later, we were both in the house. Zim grabbed an umbrella from where there were about a million of them, spreading the giant thing over his head. I stood under it too, there was enough room to cover a small pool. 

Slowly, we made our way to the clearing, or the barrens, as I like to call it. This was where he had died. That should make it all come back. As we got closer, he looked like he was getting nervous. He kept glancing at me. Maybe he was getting a bad vibe off the place. I don't know. I was getting pretty freaked out myself. I didn't like the place, never had, particularly not in the rain at night.  
"Do you remember anything about this place?"  
Zim looked around.  
"This is where…" he looked at me, a look a fear in his eyes, although he tried to hide it."No. I don't remember."  
He wasn't fading. That meant that he remembered some, but he wasn't convinced yet. There had to be some other… Yes. The cemetery. There was nothing to convince you that you were dead like your name on a gravestone.  
"There's somewhere else we can go. Come on, it's raining harder."

It was only a few blocks to the cemetery, the only one in our town. In the back, there was a new stone, made of granite. It was almost too dark to read what was written on it.  
As we approached, lightning split the sky. I was amazed at how much our setting resembled that of pretty much every horror story I had read.  
"Look at that headstone." Zim peered at it. Then he turned back to me.  
"Yes? And? I have been here quite often, Dib-monkey."  
What? This wasn't right…  
"So have you. Don't you remember?" What was he talking about?  
I looked at the tombstone, thinking maybe we were at the wrong place.  
The lightning flashed, illuminating the name on the headstone.  
I backed away. Zim stared at me.  
"Don't you remember?"  
I stared at my hands. They started to fade.  
I am dead.  
And no one noticed but Zim.


End file.
